


Particulate Matter

by Monochromely



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28925349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monochromely/pseuds/Monochromely
Summary: Assorted drabbles from theHis Dark Materialsseries.[Ch. 7]— After her confrontation with Mrs. Coulter, Lyra and Pan find it hard to go to sleep that night.Previous Chapter [Ch. 6]— After the confrontation with Lyra, Marisa finds herself alone on the balcony, drinking.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter, Lyra Belacqua & Pantalaimon, Marisa Coulter & Marisa Coulter's Daemon
Comments: 42
Kudos: 90





	1. The Dark, the Mist, the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! I just recently got into the _His Dark Materials_ series, and now that I’m almost done with the _The Subtle Knife,_ I started the first ep. of the show today! It caught my eye on Tumblr and made me want to start the books in turn. 
> 
> This fic is mainly just going to be a repository for drabbles whenever I get inspired by the series, whether the show or the books! I'm not sure if I'll update it regularly, but I definitely intend to write some more. I'm especially fascinated by Mrs. Coulter, who is stunningly vile _and_ incredibly nuanced, and that combination is simply magnetic to me.
> 
> —
> 
>  **Ch. 1 Summary:** After meeting Lyra for the first time at Jordan College, Mrs. Coulter can't sleep.

The humid night draws itself around Marisa Coulter in swirls of dark and mist and stars as she paces the cobblestoned grounds of Jordan College—now asleep for the time being, all its Scholars tucked in bed.

 _Poor dears_ , she muses vacantly, a smile sharpening one corner of her mouth. _It must be tiring sitting around all day… doing nothing… drinking wine… playing philosopher._

The monkey growls softly but doesn’t say anything as he pads along by her side, his tail swinging to the rhythm of her heels clicking against the time worn stone.

_Click._

_Click._

_Click._

Marisa rarely completes an action without a purpose. She eats to sustain her body. She sleeps because biological necessity demands it. She drinks coffee religiously because she’s a downright monster without it. And applies her makeup flawlessly every morning because she understands that her face is its own weapon—drawn on and always unsheathed. She studies the Word of God in order to better comprehend His will and that of the Magisterium. She helms the _intercision_ program to save children from Dust. She sweats, she labors, and she toils and toils and toils. And every movement is a striving towards _something_ , and that _something_ is the sum totality of all these little actions combined.

Divine purpose.

Painstakingly, lovingly, _rightfully_ earned.

God is going to carve her name in the stars one day.

Her crown will be atoms and nebulas and _light._

But somehow and nonetheless, even though every action has an appointed meaning in Marisa Coulter’s carefully partitioned life, she paces the labyrinthine square of Jordan College at midnight anyway and can’t quite come up with an adequate excuse as to why she’s doing so.

Oh, of course, she can claim the physical benefits of exercise.

If she’s really feeling self-duplicitous, she can almost trick herself into believing that she’s simply admiring the campus—all its weathered bricks and ancient patina and storied history—before she is set to depart tomorrow.

But amidst the dark, the mist, and the stars, Marisa has no leaf covering against her own nakedness, much less a logical defense for her restless wanderings. Even though she pulls her jacket a little more snugly around her body, collar flush against the slender column of her neck, it just won’t do.

Because she’s not pacing the slabs of Jordan College for a _God_ -ordained purpose.

She’s not doing it for the _Church._

She’s doing it because she touched her daughter for the first time in twelve years today.

Stroked her warm cheek with the side of her thumb.

Felt the strands of her dark hair brushing against her skin.

And something primal stirred in the woman, deep inside her adamantine gut.

The heavens and the earth thundered and revolted and _moved._

And for an instant, in the moment when Lyra was briefly glancing away, she despised the monkey for daring to stare softly at Pantalaimon, a small ermine then, curled around the child’s scuffed boot.

But the monkey paid her no mind.

And continued to stare softly anyway.

And so they both melted, woman and dæmon.

Mother and soul.

Marisa cupped her daughter’s face like it was the most beautiful thing in the world, and it was.

She was.

_Is._

For Lyra is no longer a figure of her past now, a ghost she only rarely touches with tendrils of aching memory.

She’s twelve-years old now, and she’s simply _magnificent_.

The knife-sharp realization is enough to almost make Marisa trip on a loose stone, but she’s more careful than that.

She always is.

She avoids the aberration gracefully, picking around it with a few graceful flicks of her heels, and the monkey jumps beside her in mimicry, his tiny nose twisting in disgust.

“We have a lot to do,” Marisa says primly, regaining control of herself, shoving her hands in her pockets, _moving on—_ past edifices, past icons, past fountains, past curtained windows. (She distantly wonders which of these belongs to the child...) “The girl is wild, running across rooftops, talking so loosely. We must teach her manners.”

The monkey doesn’t say anything. He rarely does these days.

Marisa says everything enough for the both of them.

“It won’t be easy”—she shakes her head in quiet admission, spraying her dark curls around her shoulders—“but I’ve always liked an ambitious challenge. Fixing the impossible. Repairing. Restoring...”

She trails off then, pausing in front of a chipped statue of the Virgin Mary, whose stone face is lifted towards the moon in unfettered adoration of the Son. Her ivory robes are woven with thin layers of accumulated moss, her bare feet shiny from so many passerby clenching them for good luck.

Before she was ever deified, though, she was hated, called a whore among women.

Marisa smiles sadly at her, but when she speaks, she aims her words towards the monkey, who sits reverently at her feet, tiny, black hands clasped, as though in prayer.

“I... I didn’t expect for her to favor me so well,” she utters softly, her voice hushed, even though no one is around to hear. It is only her and the monkey and the dark and the mist and the stars.

Oh, and Dust, of course.

Always Dust.

“She has my hair... my nose... my sense of... _vivacity_.”

They spent hours together after their meal in the dining hall, trading stories in the columned corridors of Jordan.

Rooftop escapades and adventures in haunted crypts.

Negotiations with armored bears and skirmishes with the Tartars.

As sure as Marisa was of the child falling under her irresistible spell, she was uncomfortably aware, too, of a sensation seizing through her own chest.

A lurching of sorts.

A _stumbling._

The monkey’s brow furrows, and Marisa remembers herself, finally turning away from the statue of the long dead mother.

They are not the same.

“Come.” She extends a jacketed arm for the monkey to perch upon. “Tomorrow will be here before we know it.”


	2. Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the boat ride to London, Ma Costa tries to find comfort in routine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, I knew I wanted to write a Ma Costa piece from the moment the show gave her the name Maggie, which is my own name! She's such a good character, and the scene of her weeping on the boat as Tony wrapped his arms around her got to me. ;-;
> 
> Also, one thing I've noticed in writing these two pieces is that I think it's going to be pretty commonplace for me to intertwine book canon and show canon with no rhyme or reason as to why hiaofhiohoas, so sorry for that in advance.

Maggie Costa knows exactly what to do with her hands—her flat and earthy hands that are calloused from years upon years of ceaseless labor: learning how to govern her boat from the time she was a wee girl, washing linens in a basin, tying knots, wrapping fingers around a roughly hewn fishing pole in the dead of winter.

It’s all muscle memory now, as inextricable from her as her dæmon.

She’s a woman of constant work, practical work, _quiet_ work.

She goes on because that’s just what Gyptians do.

Limp on.

Surviving a world that has not been kind to them.

Not at all.

Every morning since her boy disappeared, she still gets up and fixes breakfast, two pieces of buttered bread for herself, five for Tony, and two _for_ —

She readjusts the rigging and maps out coordinates and sweeps the deck and mends worn-out clothes. The next day, she does it all over again.

The familiar routine soothes her, distracts her even, and she loses herself in the rhythm some days, a gentle rocking back and forth between chores and responsibilities and duties like she’s driftwood out at sea, tossed by the salt-sprayed waves.

It’s nice not to feel sometimes.

It’s better just to _do_.

Maggie Costa knows exactly what to do with her hands—her warm and motherly hands—because every night around dusk, she creeps down below deck, careful not to encounter the creaking step near the bottom, and slides her curled fingers along the railing for balance.

She’s gotta extinguish the anbaric lamps her silly boys keep forgettin’ to turn off.

And softly kiss their wrinkle-free heads in the darkness, brushing the hair back from their eyes.

After blowing out the lights, Maggie shuffles over to Tony’s bed first—because she _always_ does—gingerly leaning down and smoothing the blanket he’s haphazardly thrown over himself. He’s a diligent boy, her sweet Tony, and he’s gotten into the habit of sleeping in day clothes just in case he’s needed on her boat or another’s. Lyuba perches on the shelf above his bed, her golden eyes closed in shared slumber.

Maggie kisses his forehead, and Jal swoops to quietly brush his feathers against Lyuba's.

And then she _turns_ , all muscle memory, all rhythm and routine, because she’s gotta kiss Billy on the head, too, or else he won’t be able to sleep right.

But realization is a brutal beast, goddammit, crocodile-teeth sharp.

And before she ever sees the empty bed, before she ever takes in his little stuffed bear lying abandoned on the floor, she remembers that he’s _gone_.

Lost.

John Faa thinks he’s been _stolen_.

The Gyptian kids gossip that Gobbled kids never come back.

Jal keens in the darkness, unable to stop himself, even though he knows he should.

And Maggie Costa places her shaking hands over her mouth to stop her own anguish, but some of it still leaks out anyway.

Because nothing in her life has ever prepared her for the agony of missing a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested, a Tumblr link to my thoughts on the first episode of the show [here!](https://stagpotter.tumblr.com/post/641018954976002048/lyras-jordan-reaction)


	3. Breakfast Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To Lyra's surprise, Mrs. Coulter comes down to breakfast in her pajamas one morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just watched "The Idea of North" today, and I'm so glad that the show took the time to flesh out some of the interactions Lyra had while she stayed at Mrs. Coulter's. ;w; Ruth Wilson and Dafne Keen did things to my very sensitive and very tender emotions.

On the seventh morning after Lyra’s arrival at Mrs. Coulter’s penthouse suite, her new guardian finally comes to breakfast in something other than an immaculately pressed jumper or vividly colored dress. Rather, she’s arranged in silky, blue pajamas, the waist cinched with a soft belt, her dark hair pooling around her neck in loose, unbrushed curls.

She doesn’t even have all of her makeup on yet as she lowers herself down at the long table, accepting a mug of coffee from the day butler.

Just her eyeliner.

And the effect makes her appear younger than she does with all the other nonsense so carefully applied on: the blush, the foundation, the lipstick.

Pantalaimon flutters his butterfly wings in quiet awe as Lyra places her flute of orange juice down with a clink that isn’t as gentle as she thinks it is.

“Mrs. Coulter, I ee’nt ever seen you in, uh, real people clothes before.”

Mrs. Coulter seems amused by this, for her lips tip upwards in the barest, most fleeting of smiles as she reaches forward to grab a scone.

“You _haven’t_ seen me in real people clothes before, Lyra,” she chides gently. “Goodness, did those Jordan Scholars never teach you basic grammar growing up?”

“Well, they tried,” Lyra laughs, “but the Librarian got tired of me sneaking out the window when his back was turned.”

Mrs. Coulter shakes her head lightly between delicate bites of her pastry, and the monkey jumps up on the balcony ledge, staring at the champagne pale sky, his beautiful fur illumined beneath the rays of the rising sun.

“Of course,” she murmurs teasingly. “I forgot that you conceive of yourself as a burgeoning truant…”

Lyra doesn’t know what _truant_ means, _burgeoning_ neither, but she assumes that it can’t be anything bad if Mrs. Coulter is saying it.

She wags one of her brows mischievously and shovels another bite of pancakes into her mouth; food at Jordan never tasted as wonderful as this…

“But, as to your astute observation,” Mrs. Coulter continues, dabbing at the corners of her mouth daintily with a napkin, “yes, I certainly _am_ in my pajamas. Were you under the impression that I sleep in my day clothes, silly girl?”

The playful aspect in her voice is still there, and Lyra can’t help but flash her a smile even as she hastens to defend herself.

“No!” She protests around a mouthful of mush, which earns her a reproving stare from the monkey, still nestled serenely on his balcony perch. She obediently swallows the rest of the food before continuing. “I just thought you get up really early an’ make sure you’re all nice ’n fancy for the day.”

Like, really, really early.

Like, before _seven_ early.

Jeez.

“Something to that effect, yes,” Mrs. Coulter smiles. “I conceive of my apparel as… hmm… a tool of sorts insomuch as my clothes communicate how I would like to be perceived by others. In my world— _our_ world, I should say—important people don’t take you very seriously if you’re not dressed to match.”

Pantalaimon, now a cream-colored kitten flattening his ears against his skull, hops down lightly in her lap to shrink away from view.

Lyra’s chest feels like someone’s done gone and stuck a needle in its balloon.

_Is she not important enough for Mrs. Coulter to dress up all fancy for anymore?_

Pan brushes his face against the silky fabric of her own pajama shirt, and she instinctively strokes him, trying to soothe his hurt feelings.

What a baby.

But Mrs. Coulter’s eyes widen, catching all this, the faint lines beneath them strangely stark, and she shakes her head vehemently, slinging those dark, untamed curls around her shoulders.

“Oh, no, Lyra!” She exclaims as the monkey glances over with the same expression: surprised, tentative, and something entirely else that the twelve-year old cannot claim to understand.

It’s a soft emotion, though, whatever it is.

Tender.

Concerned.

_Involved._

“Please don’t misunderstand me. I’ve decided not to dress up this morning for an entirely different reason.”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Coulter. I wasn’t—“

But Mrs. Coulter cuts across her embarrassed mumblings with that sharp politeness she wields so well, leaning forward against the tablecloth.

“As commonplace as it is for me to dress well for important people, it’s equally as rare that I ever allow myself to appear vulnerable in their company. I only do it for people whom I like… whom I consider—“ But now it’s Mrs. Coulter’s turn to be frazzled. Her pale cheeks strangely color as she settles back in her chair again, exchanging a glance with her dæmon, who only nods encouragingly, like a parent with his child, one seeking permission and the other silently giving it.

Pan dares to stick his puppy dog head up above the table again, his floppy ear unsubtly lifted.

“— _dear,_ ” she finishes uncertainly, clearing her throat. “I only do it for people whom I consider dear.”

Lyra has never seen Mrs. Coulter look so uncomfortable before, but she understands what the woman can’t seem to bring herself to say.

And the thought, the idea, the _realization_ sends a warm, little shiver into her stomach.

Like a firework burstin’ across the corrugated rooftops of Jordan College.

Lighting the ink-stricken sky.

“Well,” she finally says, as Pan suddenly shifts into a lion cub, all big ’n large now, strong and happy and proud, “I like you, too, Mrs. Coulter.”

The words don’t seem to immediately register at first, for Mrs. Coulter’s slender face is blank for the longest stretch of a second, her bare lips parted in confusion, that clever mind of hers working hard to process one of the simplest sentences in the English language.

_I like you, too._

But then, firework-sudden, the monkey’s black eyes soften.

And hers do, too.

And she smiles at Lyra Belacqua so radiantly, that somehow, the entire sun seems to dim in comparison.

As beautiful as it is.

As golden and warm and lovely.

“Thank you, Lyra…”

“Yeah, of course…”

_I like her so much, Pan._

**_I know._ **

_I really, really do…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thoughts on [The Idea of North](https://stagpotter.tumblr.com/post/641587029358051328/the-idea-of-north-reactions) here!


	4. Q&A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During bath time one night, Lyra has questions for Mrs. Coulter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyra and Mrs. Coulter are stuck in my brain rn, so have another drabble.;w;

The bathroom is strewn with gentle, golden light by the anbaric strips embedded in the ceiling. Marisa notices that Lyra is fascinated by them in the same way she was fascinated with the mechanics of the elevator lift and the automatic coffee brewer and the air conditioning units, staring at each of these entities with wide discs for eyes.

Because Jordan College had never had such amenities, much preferring to spend its discretionary funds backing fools like Asriel and all his high and mighty plans.

She curses that man for a lot of things.

His presumption.

His recklessness.

His effortless success in a world that has always demanded far more from her.

(They both conceived Lyra, but by God, Marisa was the one society deemed the promiscuous disgrace, the failure of a wife, the failure of a mother.)

But sometimes, she despises him for sending Lyra to Jordan most of all.

The child’s never had a bed that doesn’t creak before, much less silk pajamas imported from Paris.

(And she knows for a _fact_ that the sweaters Lord Asriel prefers, the cashmere ones with the intricate threading, are not simple wares he’s traded with sherpas in the North.)

(Damn him sideways, and God, forgive her for doing it. She absolutely doesn’t mean to mean it.)

As the clawfoot tub begins to drink its fill, Lyra sits upon the very edge of it, gowned in one of Marisa’s old shirts, kicking her feet against the porcelain as Pan experimentally wades in the water—a tiny, black duckling testing his own buoyancy.

Marisa leans back in her chair, half-skimming the pages of the book she’s reading, when in all reality she’s paying attention to the monkey, who’s paying attention to Lyra.

He’s always paying attention to Lyra these days.

“Mrs. Coulter?”

“Yes, Lyra?” She immediately splays the book she isn’t reading facedown on her lap. It’s boring anyway—a theoretical treatment of ethics.

“How do anbaric lights work?” The girl asks, her dark eyes flicking upwards to the ceiling again, tracing those amber dusted lines, parallel to each other, symmetrical, and kind of miraculous now that Marisa really thinks about them, surveying them through a child’s eyes.

“Well,” Marisa returns patiently, adopting the same didactic voice of a Scholar, “there are tiny wires running through the strips, and when connected to a source of anbar, the wires emit energy that manifests itself as light.”

Lyra pauses, takes a second to absorb this new information, and just as quickly nods, her dark eyes bright with understanding.

She’s so clever, smart, and intuitive.

Goodness, it makes Marisa proud.

(And it singularly terrifies her, too, that this child’s resemblance to her goes so much further than looks. What if Lyra looks in the mirror one day and puts all the blatant puzzle pieces together, sizing them up, adjoining them? What if she hates Marisa for keeping such a secret? More pressingly still, what if she loves her nonetheless and even still? What if she calls her _Mother_? Marisa was _Mother_ for only a few short months some twelve years ago, and then, if she was to be anything in the world, if she was to claw and scratch and claim the barest inch of respect from others that she rightfully deserved, then she couldn’t be _Mother_. She had to be Mrs. Coulter, whatever that entailed: cold seduction, cleverness, passion, intelligence, breathtaking and necessary cruelty.)

“Mrs. Coulter?” Lyra’s voice raises itself into a question again, and Marisa comes back to herself with a frown.

“Yes, Lyra?”

“Ee’nt it kinda crazy to use all this hot water every night?” The tub is now about waist deep, and Pan is an otter, taking laps from end to end as though he can’t get enough of the sensation. “Doesn’t it ever run out?”

Marisa’s heart simply cleaves itself in two.

On the other side of the tub, behind Lyra’s back, the monkey’s tail droops.

She damns Asriel again.

Just for good measure.

“No,” she says softly, shaking her head. “I pay good money in order to ensure that that _never_ happens...”

A pause.

Marisa dares to ask the question she thinks she already knows the answer to.

“... did it ever run out for you? At Jordan, I mean?”

“All the time,” Lyra shrugs immediately, like it’s not that big of a deal. “Especially in the winter when the pipes’d freeze. But my friend Roger, he’d bring me a cuppa hot chocolate to warm me up on those kinda nights, so it wasn’t all too bad.”

The monkey’s face twists itself into a snarl as Marisa plasters on what she knows is a commiserating smile.

She’s angry at Asriel, of course.

And at Jordan College.

At all those useless Scholars.

And a little irritated at the girl, too—even if she doesn’t want to admit it—for bringing up _Roger_ again. Goodness, it’s been two weeks, and that’s all she cares about: _Roger_. Won’t she move past a useless, little kitchen nobody already?

“Lyra,” Marisa says seriously, raising her voice over the sibilance of the water. “You’ll _never_ run out of hot water while you’re here with me. I can assure you that.”

And just as before, it only takes a second for realization to scrawl itself all over Lyra’s sharply drawn features.

She inhales deeply and nods, a gentle smile crooking one side of her mouth.

“Thank you, Mrs. Coulter.”

“It’s my genuine pleasure...”

The monkey’s fierce expression resolves itself, and he returns to grooming his fur.

When the tub is about halfway full, Marisa pours in some epsom salt and bubble bath, the fragrant perfumes wreathing the air like incense, and Lyra watches her delightedly. Before coming here, she’d never had a bubble bath before, and last night, they’d had so much fun together, making sudsy beards on their faces.

When the tub is truly full, nearly at the brim, sloshing, she flicks the faucet off, and gives Pantalaimon the meaningful nod he knows well by now. With a graceful leap into the air, he metamorphoses from otter to finch in an instant, beating his damp wings until he lands on the floor, head turned away.

Lyra extricates herself from the shirt that’s much too big for her and clambers into the tub, sighing blissfully as the warm water envelops her in its embrace.

“Perfect temperature?” Marisa asks, fond, warm, amused.

“ _Pitch_ ,” the girl grins as she leans backwards to wet her dark hair.

“Good.”

And Marisa, as she’s done for nearly sixteen straight nights now, can only soak her all in during these quiet moments, simply staring at her daughter when she thinks it’s permissible to look (which is only when Lyra is looking away).

She’s simply making up for lost time, all those four thousand missing nights.

Studying the architecture of her face.

Learning the composition of her heart.

Like she’s a scholastic project that the woman desperately doesn’t want to fail.

(Again.)

“Mrs. Coulter?” Lyra asks after awhile, and there’s a hesitant note in her voice this time, reluctant, unsure, that makes Marisa pause in the middle of gingerly threading conditioner through the child’s hair.

“Yes, Lyra?”

“D’you think we’ll go look for Roger soon? He ee’nt never had a bath like this neither, and I’m... I’m sure he’d like it.”

Oh, how the monkey balks, glaring upwards with baleful, black eyes.

And how Marisa so tenderly, so perfectly smiles, skimming her wet knuckles along the side of Lyra’s damp temple.

“Soon,” she promises between her teeth. “My sources says that they may have a good lead… I’ll talk to them later this week. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

Lyra nods once.

Trusting.

Reassured.

Eyes rich with understanding.

“I reckon so...”

(But because his head is turned away from them, what Mrs. Coulter doesn’t see is that Pantalaimon’s expression remain sad, ancient with worry.)


	5. Headaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four weeks in London later, both Lyra and Mrs. Coulter have full heads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Augh, thank you so much for the kindness you folks have shown these drabbles. I've enjoyed writing them, and I can't wait to keep exploring Philip Pullman's utterly gorgeous world. 
> 
> I wasn't planning on doing another one this weekend, but hioahdfoihfoi, my muse just said go for it, so here we are.

One quiet night, four weeks in London later, Lyra sits on the couch, pretending to read some history book that Mrs. Coulter insisted upon, while Mrs. Coulter herself is curled up in the chair opposite, scrawling notes in the margins of a thick book. Her loopy handwriting is pretty and small and illegible to Lyra, who never learned how to do cursive. (She ducked out of those particular lessons by feigning chicken pox; Roger obligingly dotted her with berry juice, snickering a little as he poked her right between the eyes.)

Mrs. Coulter always looks pretty, but Lyra reckons she’s the prettiest when she’s got her hair all down, and she’s not dressed to kill a man. Like tonight, for instance, she’s got on a silky robe, lavender and luxurious, its hem pooling like liquid on the floor. She seems ethereal, like a fairy almost, fragile and elegant and light, and it’s with a fond smile that Lyra remembers the conversation that they had at the beginning of all this, when they established what it means that she’s comfortable enough to wear pajamas around Lyra...

Pantalaimon, in his favorite ermine form, urgently nudges her hand, calling her back to her senses.

 _But think about it—that was weeks ago, Lyra_ , he whispers into her mind. _Shouldn’t we be focusing on Roger? Shouldn’t she...? She promised..._

 _She said to trust her,_ _Pan_... _maybe she’s working on it right now, readin’ that big, fancy book of hers…?_

 _I highly doubt Roger’s going to be found in a book_ , he returns crossly, turning into a wasp hovering next to her face. The buzzing of his wings catches the golden monkey’s attention; he’d been heretofore slinking up and down the stretch of floor next to Mrs. Coulter’s chair, looking strangely restless.

Surprised, Pan promptly pops back into his ermine skin again, landing on top of her chest with a neat thud.

 _Real smooth_ , she snaps, glaring at him over the top of her book.

_I can’t help it!_

“Lyra, dear?” Both Lyra and Pan look up to see that Mrs. Coulter’s attention has also been snagged from across the room. Indeed, she and the monkey both have directed their undivided attention towards them now, and their dual intensity is enough to force Pan to turn into a kitten, pressing his gray paws clumsily against the fabric of her shirt. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Lyra mumbles immediately, her cheeks feeling hot, “just thinking about a lotta stuff, you know?”

“The kind of stuff that makes your head feel full, huh?” Mrs. Coulter’s brow bends sympathetically as the monkey resumes his methodical pacing, back and forth and back again, his tiny hands clicking against the sleek wood. Pan watches him, a little discomfited, a little mesmerized, wondering why he’s so cagey tonight.

“Exactly!” Lyra exclaims. “That’s it. My head’s just a lil full.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Coulter sighs, the gesture less sound than susurrus, “I know the feeling.”

And she raises the thick book she’s reading, allowing Lyra to get a good glimpse at the text for the first time. To her surprise, her guardian’s elegant handwriting isn’t the only part of it that’s entirely incomprehensible to her. Indeed, the tome seems to be written in an entirely different language.

Or, more accurately still, it looks like English would if someone completely didn’t know English and was just making excellent educated guesses.

“Latin,” Mrs. Coulter supplies, correctly interpreting the confusion in Lyra’s face. “The liturgical language. I began to learn it when I was around your age.”

It’s an impressive statement, communicative of just how intelligent Mrs. Coulter is, but frankly, Lyra isn’t all too surprised anymore.

This lady seems to know everything, answering every question that the twelve-year old has with patience, kindness, and poise.

Even the little things.

The stupid ones.

Like how anbaric lights work.

Or why the sky is blue.

 _She won’t give you a straight answer about Roger, though_ , Pan reminds her stubbornly, kneading her pajama shirt with his claws.

Lyra works hard to ignore him.

“Looks fancy,” she replies, “and _hard_.”

“It’s most certainly both,” Mrs. Coulter shakes her head, replacing the book on her lap. “I used to be able to read it so fluently when I was in college, declining nouns like a Roman conqueror... but now, out of practice, out of touch...”

“—your head feels all full,” Lyra finishes, tilting her head sympathetically.

“Precisely, darling.”

And for the first time in a long time—perhaps since the very first week of their acquaintance—she studies her guardian's face, deconstructing it like one of the math problems the Librarian used to keep setting in front of her. And her findings prove thus, the variables all clear—beneath the mask of her gentle smile, there’s an exhaustion about Mrs. Coulter.

Slight.

Subtle.

Tinged with the indefinable manic energy of someone who works and works and works.

Staring at the faint lines beneath her arctic blue eyes, Lyra suddenly thinks of Lord Asriel for some reason. As driven as he is, as cold and as fierce and as clever, sometimes, on his rare visits to Jordan College,she’s noticed that he looks a little exhausted, too.

“If your head feels all full,” Lyra asks, “why don’t you stop for awhile? Try again in the morning?”

The monkey briefly pauses in his tracks, staring at Lyra with open curiosity—tender, probing, mild—before continuing onwards, a dutiful soldier committed to his guard.

“Believe me,” Mrs. Coulter sighs, “I’ve asked myself the same question, but my employers... they’re _always_ expecting me to produce innovative material, even when my project is more ambitious than their wildest dreams.”

Her voices raises a little at the end, and the golden monkey, his face turned away, growls lightly, his beautiful tail stiffly coiled.

Pan transforms into a monkey, too, empathetically trying the emotion on for himself—the pent-up frustration of never feeling like he can do enough.

The form’s a little strange, but it kinda fits, too.

Because Lyra thinks about Roger again.

About how there’s so much more she can be doing to help him.

“Stick it to ‘em, Mrs. Coulter,” she says, sudden fierceness in her voice, flooding passion. Pan is a wildcat on her lap, black hackles raised. “Seriously. If you _know_ you’re better, forget all the toerags that don’t get it.”

Mrs. Coulter’s eyes widen in quiet surprise, mouth slightly parted, before she suddenly breaks out into a laugh—sudden, sincere, and musical—the faint lines in her face creasing pleasantly. Even though he continues to pace, the monkey’s expression softens incrementally when he comes back around.

“My, my,” she chuckles, “what coarse language... but thank you, Lyra. I appreciate it. _Sincerely_.”

And she gives Lyra another one of those radiant smiles again, the one that she loves so much, that makes the girl _feel_ like she’s maybe, very possibly loved.

And Pan, feral though he appears, brushes against her cheek, purring.

“But, since we’re trading secrets now,” Mrs. Coulter continues, her brow furrowing above her eyes, “why is your own head full, dear? Feeling tired? Is it bedtime for you?”

Lyra’s nose automatically wrinkles in disdain. In London, she’s had a strict bedtime every night, which is a far cry from how her caretakers at Jordan College handled her nightly routine.

(Which is to say that at Jordan College, she didn’t really have a nightly routine. Someone would just yell at her to go to bed, and then she’d maybe do it or maybe not depending on her mood.)

“No,” she shakes her head defiantly, but then, a little more gently, a little more politely, “ _no_... I’m just... I’m thinkin’ about Roger again, Mrs. Coulter. He’s gotta be so scared and lonely and confused…”

Pantalaimon, now an ermine again, watches the golden monkey, far bigger than him and far more graceful and far better at keeping a neutral face.

But as soon as Lyra mentions Roger, the golden monkey’s nose twists unpleasantly, as though he’s smelling something awful, and Pan lurches, instinctively recognizing the emotion for what it is.

 _Disgust_.

Mrs. Coulter smiles sadly, her slender face perfectly free of her dæmon, and the monkey turns away again.

“I imagine so,” she murmurs, “but all my best people are doing their best to look for him, Lyra. Haven’t I told you this before?”

And even Lyra can hear the warning note in her voice this time, the implicit insistence that she shouldn’t push.

 _Push anyway_ , Pan encourages, pressing his black nose gently against her neck. _For Roger, Lyra. He needs you._

“I... I know,” Lyra mumbles, “but I just thought we could help look for him, too, you know? All hands on deck.”

The monkey makes some sort of impatient sound that registers as such in the empty air, but still, Mrs. Coulter’s expression remains perfectly pleasant.

Soft.

Compassionate even.

Lyra’s heart thuds with its own confusion.

“If all else fails,” Mrs. Coulter promises, straightening her silk-enclosed shoulders, “we will, sweet girl. I wouldn’t lie to you— _ever_.”

Pantalaimon isn’t so sure about that, but Lyra half-heartedly brushes him off again.

Because she likes Mrs. Coulter.

She really does.

 _We can like someone and not believe them, Lyra_ , he reminds her gently.

 _That’s scary to think about_ , _Pan_.

_I know._

Mrs. Coulter’s smile is so kind… so warm… so inviting…

 _Someone can like us and still not tell us the truth,_ Pan warns, watching the monkey’s vaguely cross expression.

_That’s even scarier somehow._

_I know._


	6. Unholy Communion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the confrontation with Lyra, Marisa finds herself alone on the balcony, drinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff time's over. Hhhh... it's time to see Marisa Coulter unhinged.  
>    
> **Please be cautious when you're reading this one, as it deals with themes of alcohol and self-harm!**

The starless night drags itself in dark shadows over Marisa Coulter as she sits at the dining table on the balcony.

All alone.

Clenching the stem of her half-empty wine glass as though she has all intentions to shatter it in half.

It wouldn’t take much to do it.

A sharp twist of her fingers.

A scientifically precise modicum of force applied.

And then there’d be glass all over her palms, red wine and blood intermingled across the smooth expanse of her white flesh.

 _Communion_.

She smiles bitterly to herself at this little joke as the monkey growls from his favorite perch on the precarious ledge. He likes to pace it from time to time, slinking along the thin edge that separates him from the fall.

Of course, the fundamental difference between him and Marisa is that only one of them would think about jumping.

“We’ve wasted too much time with her,” she says aloud, tipping her head back and draining the rest of her drink with one unbroken swallow.

And then, because she wants to get drunk tonight, because she doesn’t want to _feel_ , she pours herself another portion, the neck of the bottle clinking against the rim of the glass in harmonious disharmony.

_Clink._

_Clink._

_Clink._

“Trying to mold her, teach her manners, _raise_ her by God,” Marisa scoffs, spilling a little wine on the side of her hand with the movement, “because no one else apparently did.”

The irony of this particularly statement is only temporarily lost of her.

When she remembers herself, when she recalls that she spent nearly fourteen hours in labor with Lyra, that she once tenderly and lovingly called her _daughter_ , the monkey whimpers pathetically, his black eyes glittering in the dark.

“Oh, _shush_ ,” she snarls at him, taking satisfaction when he cowers. “You know what I meant.”

And Marisa inhales yet another drag of Moscato, ignoring that the monkey cautiously leaps off the ledge and back onto the balcony when she does.

On safe ground now.

Secure.

“And _of course_ she adores Asriel,” she laughs humorlessly, swiping the back of her hand across her wet mouth. Her knuckles come back stained. “Who doesn’t adore that complete and utter _bastard_?”

She allows the word _bastard_ to luxuriate on her tongue. It’s a borrowing from a French word according to the _Jordan English Dictionary_ , adopted by Anglo-Norman speakers sometime in the 1500s— _basttard, bastart, basterde_.

The intellectualization makes her feel smart.

The primal coarseness of the word makes her feel _savage._

She takes another reckless swill of wine.

She deserves to feel _savage_ tonight.

The monkey totters a little on his paws but retains enough composure to stare at her reproachfully—malevolent, insolent thing.

“She was going to find out eventually,” Marisa defends herself, scrunching her nose, “if not from me, then from someone who would have spun some fantastic tale about Lord Asriel’s greatness and heroism and personal tragedy. They would have elevated his name to the stars”—she raises her glass in mock reverence—“called him Father of the Year for doing the bare minimum of impregnating—”

She stops short, her breath hitching, the natural end to this sentence almost unbearable to admit.

“... _me_.”

And there it is again.

The implicit recognition of her own motherhood.

The _love_ that swells so horribly inside her chest.

The _adoration_.

The _warmth_.

The peculiar sensation that she would give up nearly anything just to wrap Lyra in her arms again and never let her go.

It’s all so terribly disturbing.

Marisa drinks again like she’s a woman dying of thirst in the desert, swallowing each droplet like it’s holy.

“She doesn’t need to know who her mother is,” she shakes her head at the monkey, who’s accusing her of hypocrisy with his eyes. “Not yet anyway. I’ll save that for when she’s old enough to realize... to understand...”

But by then, it might be too late. Dust will have enveloped her. Pantalaimon will be forever fixed, a visible manifestation of Eve’s sin and the sin of all subsequent humanity.

Marisa closes her eyes against this horrid eventuality.

“And if that’s never,” she continues hoarsely, “then so be it. As long as she understands who her father is and what he’s made of.”

Lust and greed and unconscionable ambition.

Coldness.

Anger.

A death wish to defy God.

“I don’t _have_ to be her mother... if today was any indication, perhaps it’s for the best if I’m not in title as well as deed.”

She opens her eyes again, flicking the back of her free hand across them violently as though chasing a bothersome fly, and is surprised to find that her knuckles come away wet this time instead of stained.

The monkey stares at her sadly but doesn’t dare to come any closer. Marisa takes another hefty swallow just to spite him, to ache his tiny head.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she snaps. “It’s _insufferable._ I can’t suffer it. Go away. You have vents to be in, I believe.”

Her dæmon knows when he’s been dismissed. Dragging his tail across the floor, he leaves her alone on the balcony, going slowly, teetering.

And when her chest wrenches with the inevitable distance of him, Marisa pretends not to feel it.


	7. Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After her confrontation with Mrs. Coulter, Lyra and Pan find it hard to go to sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this tiny piece, I think our time at Mrs. Coulter's apartment has come to an end. ;-; Thank you all so much for the kind words on all these drabbles. I'm so glad that you're enjoying them!
> 
> I'm going to try to watch the next episode this weekend; I'm incredibly excited to see what's to come!!

That night, curled up in their voluminous bed, she and Pantalaimon remain skin-close, Lyra holding his ermine form like a small child so often does their dæmon, with all tenderness, with unconditional love.

For some reason that she hasn’t quite worked out yet, adults don’t really hold their dæmons all that much.

 _Which is a shame_ , she thinks.

Maybe they would all be so much kinder if they did.

“What do you think Mrs. Coulter’s doin’ right now?” Lyra mutters sleepily, softly stroking Pan’s fur.

“Not hurting us anymore,” he replies simply, the words laced with quiet pain.

_“Yeah.”_

Silently, they think to themselves that this isn’t strictly true. Just cos’ the monkey’s claws aren’t on Pan’s back anymore, doesn’t mean that they’re not still hurting.

They loved her.

“She was angry at those men,” Lyra says, a pleading note in her voice.

“That isn’t an excuse.”

She tries a different track.

“I should’a kept the alethiometer under my pillow.”

“We have to keep it safe. The Master of Jordan told us to.”

Lyra feels a wetness pricking her eyes in the darkness. Unwilling to jostle Pan, she can’t raise a hand to harshly scrub it away.

“I shouldn’t’ve brought up Lord Asriel.”

Pan softly licks her face, his scratchy tongue soothing against her hot skin.

“But then we wouldn’t know that he’s your father.”

Lyra briefly shuts her eyes at this unwelcome reminder, swallowing a lump in the column of her throat.

Lord Asriel, her beloved uncle—that scary, scary man—is her _father_.

She has a _father_.

Whenever she’d used to ask about her _father_ , Lord Asriel would never give her a straight answer.

“He was a stupid man,” he’d sometimes claim about his "brother," his eyes flat and cold. “Always missing the trees for the stars.”

And when she’d ask about her mother, the coldness of his voice wouldn’t necessarily melt, but Stelmaria would growl gently at this faceless woman’s mention. Sometimes, Lyra liked to imagine that this little gesture meant that Lord Asriel had been in love with her dead mother this whole time; she would construct grand fairytales in her head that always seemed to end with her finally having two parents to love and be loved by, even though it was childish.

Irrational.

Dumb.

Her mother was dead.

“She looked a lot like you,” he would eventually shrug, glancing away.

Lyra never found enough courage to ask whether that was a good thing or a bad one.

“I hope she’s still out there, Pan,” she whispers softly, clutching her dæmon all the closer, “and that she’s searching for me. Right now. At this very instant.”

“I hope so, too,” Pantalaimon returns, leaning into her embrace with all the atoms in his body.

(He needs her to know that she is loved.)

“She would love me so much,” Lyra yawns, her eyes feeling heavy. “She’d take you and me on all sorts of adventures.”

“She’d never hurt us.”

“Yeah.”

And they smile a little to themselves at the thought, this gentle dream of a gentle mother—someone who looks a lot like Lyra and loves them and takes them on adventures and never hurts them.

As they drift off to sleep, they tell themselves that she’s out there somewhere.

That she’s coming for them one day.

That she could show up any time now.

(She outside on the balcony, passed out, drunk.)


End file.
